


trying not to fall apart (they can’t take it anymore)

by sotakeabitofcalpol



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: (also this was written prior to Techno saying SBI isn’t canon), (not graphic and not carried out very far), Exhaustion, Gen, Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Panic Attacks, Suicide Attempt, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, and oh boy is this suffering, back to the election arc bois, philza isn’t a good father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sotakeabitofcalpol/pseuds/sotakeabitofcalpol
Summary: before Techno joins the cause, before Dream and the TNT room and the Festival, it was just the three of them.it’s cold, it’s lonely and it definitely isn’t pretty.or Tommy has to watch his brothers and himself fall apart and it’s not nearly as slow motion as he wishes it were
Relationships: Tommyinnit & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, platonic you creeps
Kudos: 66





	trying not to fall apart (they can’t take it anymore)

**Author's Note:**

> I know I’m multiple story arcs behind but I was working up the courage to post in this fanbase.
> 
> minor warnings for disordered eating patterns, the dread of becoming the same as your family and disownment

It's almost dawn on a Monday morning, and Tommy is watching the sky begin to light up, stood on the outcrop outside Pogtopia. It's nothing unusual.

Tubbo's stood next to him, his eyes on the dawn too. When they'd first ended up here, he'd wondered why he didn't just go back to Manberg in the night, whilst it's easier. He stands here regardless of whether the sunset is beautiful or it's obscured by rain. It had taken him a long time to notice the way he went back closer to the risk of discovery every time. Maybe it's because he doesn't want to go back. Maybe it's because he hopes he'll get caught, that this will all be over. He could've asked, but you just don't. He knows that much.

He knows he'll have to go back inside soon, and he knows Tubbo has to go inside the city walls too, given the suit hanging loose under his cloak. Tommy had woken up with his sword in his hands. Tubbo had already been awake. The sun rises closer to illuminating the hillside, to being exposed to the enemy, but he doesn't move, welcomes the risk. He's always been too fond of danger.

Tubbo wordlessly drags him into the opening of Pogtopia, stopping him before he can go down the steps. They don't lock eyes with intent.

"How's Wilbur doing?" 

Trust Tubbo to hit him in the gut every time. He glances over. He's chewing his lip, and his hand is on his sword hilt. He won't bring up the fact he's stalling, because he really tries not to be cruel.

"Good."

The answer is really _I don't know because he stopped making sense and I'm terrified he'll do something he'll regret because the fighting has made him lose it and I'm terrified I'll become like him and I'm terrified you will too._

Tubbo doesn't call him on the lie. Tubbo never wants to hurt anyone, let alone him. It's just that everything seems to hurt at the moment.

* * *

His dreams vary between hiraeth and terror and memory. Tonight, it's a memory.

_Wilbur smiles, a grimace of a thing, twisted by a still healing wound from yesterday's skirmish._

_"I'm not hungry."_

_He can see the way Niki tries to say something then cuts herself off. She's always trying to help. She hasn't quite understood that sometimes all you can give will never truly be enough, because sometimes if you give and give and give you end up bled dry like everyone else._

_Wilbur is never hungry. Wilbur isn't ever tired. Both of them are lies._

_Fundy flicks a paper dart with staggering accuracy right at Wilbur from where he's bent over his documents. Wilbur doesn't even flinch, it's their thing at this point. Father and son, so in tune but unable to tell each other how deeply they cared. But Fundy's like that. Fundy pranks everyone because he cares, because he loves with his whole being and is so scared of losing them all._

_Fundy fires the second dart at Eret, who catches it with ease and flashes a look at him that, at the time, just meant they were as tired as the rest of them. The look in their eye almost matches Wilbur's, but it's closer to regret than exhaustion. They would have made their betrayal a few days before the memory. Somehow he can't bring himself to care, just wants to be back in that shitty campervan._

_Wilbur frowns down at his latest papers. It's at least ten double pages. There's no way he needs to have written that much. He hasn't taken his makeup off, but Tommy knows the hollows under his eyes are almost as dark as the ink._

He wakes up to an empty ravine, and wonders how it came to this.

* * *

Eight months ago, this had been different. Eight months ago, he'd slung his belongings over his shoulder and followed Wilbur away from Phil's house, away from his childhood home, Tubbo at his side, towards a new beginning. And that was what L'Manberg was, what the drug van was. A new beginning.

He still gets letters from Philza, telling him to stay safe, that he can come home any time. Tubbo gets the same letters, even though he isn't officially family; they both send letters back at the same time.

Wilbur has only ever had two letters from Philza since they left, and Tommy doesn't know what was in them but he knows that Wilbur walked off for a while afterwards. He knows that Wilbur keeps sending letters and photos back, of him and Tubbo, of Fundy, of their whole little army, but still never gets letters.

The one time it's mentioned, Tommy jokes that if this all goes wrong they could hole up at dad's. Wilbur replies that he isn't welcome back home. Everybody falls silent. Niki asks if their father was bad. Wilbur replies that he did something Philza can’t forgive. He doesn't elaborate and that's that for the conversation.

There's not much Philza wouldn't forgive; he's a good man, and a decent father, if still haunted by his own war. He always loved them.

Even now, with all the hours of silence in Pogtopia to try and work out what Wilbur did, he has to give in and ask him.

"I brought you and Tubbo into a war."

Wilbur doesn't do regret, doesn't allow himself to show his little brother sorrow as best he can; he would have made a great leader. His voice is low, though.

"I put his son and his son's best friend's life in danger. Family means everything to him."

* * *

Tubbo isn't the brother he never had.

He ~~has~~ had two brothers who cared about him, so deeply. It's not like he doesn't still have them, hell, Wilbur is the only person he lives with.

Tubbo isn't his brother, is different because his brothers hated the path their blood condemned them to but couldn't do anything about it. Tubbo is different because he can't see Philza's blood, the blood of an unwilling warrior, turning them all into soldiers and anarchists, can't see that blood in his veins. Wilbur and Techno, who weren't thrust into their cause like their father but couldn't escape war, same as he can't. He swears he'll protect Tubbo. Maybe together they can escape the fighting. ~~It's already claimed him. He's so very angry. It's just emptiness~~

Tubbo is so full it bleeds out of him in arterial spurts, bleeds until he's dry and pretends he isn't. He's only seen how empty he becomes because he knows emptiness so well.

They're sat on the hillside, together, because that's what they do. It's the only place they can go where, if they face away from the city wall, they can pretend it's just them, the only place where they can ignore the fact Wilbur has been up for longer than either of them care to count.

Tubbo looks worn, hair growing out over his collar and dangling over shadowed eyes. He clearly hasn't had the time or energy to bleach it either, brown roots growing back through. He remembers dying it the first time in the same bathroom Wilbur dyed his natural pink to brown in, back with Phil.

"You care too much."

Maybe he's been awake too long for this too. It's a family failing. Tubbo looks at him.

"You can never care too much."

"You can when it drains everything you have."

"It's going to get better. There are people loyal to L'Manberg in the city. There are people who will help."

"I'm loyal, Tubbo. I was loyal and I ended up exiled from the city I helped build with my insane brother. I became...this."

"You aren't a monster, Tommy."

"Then it wouldn't make you a monster to let others take the weight."

"...I can't...I can't just stop caring."

He doesn't have anything to say to that, except to move up closer to him. Tubbo doesn't hesitate before pulling him closer.

* * *

He made a promise to his nation, but right now, when the only thing glowing is the new flag of Manberg, now the sun feels as close as every other star, it doesn't matter.

There are benefits to living near a cliff face.

He rolls out of the bundle of blankets that passes for his bed at the minute, careful not to stop too long or too loud near where he thinks Wilbur is passed out after a third day of being awake. He leaves his sword in the ravine; no use wasting weapons, especially with limited supplies.

The climb isn't long, and the night is silent. Manberg is always silent at night, even though they can hear it during the day. A curfew, Tubbo says. Tubbo. Hopefully he'll be ok. He'll be safer if he doesn't have to act as a mole.

He's so deep in thought that he reaches the cliff without any recollection of the journey, comes to a foot away from the cliff edge. He looks out to where his L'Manberg once stood, to how cold it looked, how still. He turns away. That monstrosity of a flag won't be the last thing he sees.

Wilbur is behind him, sword positioned into his own stomach. They lock eyes. Neither of them say anything. What's there to say?

The next morning, neither of them mention it either. If they both hug Tubbo a little tighter when he comes to report, that's nobody's business either.

* * *

Wilbur is having a panic attack.

He has been all morning, in the way his panic attacks go. He gets angry, flinches at tiny noises and jerks violently away from touch.

Even if Tommy's panic attacks leave him unable to breathe, he wouldn't trade for Wilbur's. At least he gets it over and done with, drained but with it out of his system. Wilbur's linger for hours and sometimes days, always have. The mounting trauma and borderline insanity aren't helping.

“Wilbur, just take break.”

“I’m fine.”

Tommy specifically avoids touching him, or making too much noise. Wilbur’s hand shakes violently enough that the axe in it is wavering.

“Lay down. This won’t pass if you don’t, and then you’ll fuck up at some more important point.”

It’s always best to appeal to his brother’s sense of duty. Wilbur puts the axe down, shoulders still tense enough to snap if he holds himself any more upright. It’s almost reminiscent of his days as a proper leader. Together, they walk back inside. He nudges Wilbur towards his room, given it has a proper bed in it. He stumbles as though his head is spinning. Tommy doesn’t want to think about how light he is now, how every time his guard drops he looks weaker. Both of them stop in the doorframe.

"I'm sorry, Tommy. For all of this."

Tommy ignores the way the apology sounds like it extends to things yet to come, too.

It’s their usual meeting, in a clearing far enough away from the city and the ravine that nobody should see them. The only real difference is that Wilbur arrives from the same direction as Tubbo.

Except it isn’t the only difference. All three of them look like complete shit, husks of who they were what feels like a lifetime ago. The scar tissue on his shoulder aches; there’s a storm coming. Wilbur’s coat is unbuttoned despite the cold, how he’s shivering, stubble and shadow growing more and more visible, scars thrown into vivid relief. Tubbo’s blazer has had the lining torn out and part of the old flag stitched back in. Both of their hair is growing back out to their respective pink and brown. He knows for a fact his own is longer than it has been since he was about four.

Wilbur smells of gunpowder. Tubbo smells of alcohol. He tries hard not to think about either of those things. Tubbo looks nervous.

“There’s going to be a festival.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first smp fic lmao  
> anyway I am still stuck on the pre-festival Pogtopia arc but I cannot make myself write Wilbur as a villain.  
> title is from ‘such sad songs’ by atlas  
> lemme know if I missed any warnings


End file.
